I Wouldn't Have Him Any Other Way
by Yankee01754
Summary: Corrected (the hazards of using only a spellchecker) version of my first posting. Jess's first person narrative about Slim and his stubborn streak - how it's saved his life, Jess' life and gotten him in trouble too. "I wouldn't have him any other way" he says.
I wouldn't Have Him Any Other Way.

By Yankee01754

Sometimes it's scary how stubborn my partner can be. He tells me I'm stubborn but he's the stubborn one.

Who is it that stood up again Cameron Gault and his foreman Chad Morgan, by standing up for Frank Buckley when he was let out of prison on parole? Practically the whole town, save his girlfriend Laurie, was against Frank coming back to Laramie. Slim didn't back down though. He sent me to Cheyenne after the stage wreck caused by Morgan. Then he went and saw Mr. Gault to confront him about Morgan's actions.

Turned out to be a good thing 'cause he found out that young Gault, whom Frank had killed, had become addicted to laudanum. The night he was killed he had broken into the doc's house to hunt for it.

Slim and Mr. Gault got to town just as Morgan had forced Frank to pick up a gun - a violation of his parole. Morgan was in the process of shooting Frank to pieces, one shot at a time, when they got there. Chad Morgan's last mistake was tryiin' for Slim. My pard killed him in self defense and in defense of Frank.

When my brother-in-law, Gil Brady, convinced me that he was innocent of the charges that had landed him in the guard house, I started out to lead him to Canada. My pard refused to help. He's really upright and honest ya know? He told Andy that there was no good reason to desert the army. When he figured out that I'd been tricked he came after us. Good thing, too, 'cause Gil and I lost our footing on the cliff were were climbing across and fell into the fast moving river below. My swimming lessons with Andy didn't prepare me for a two hundred foot drop into that river. I'd've drowned if old Hard Rock hadn't heard us and dove into the river to get me out. He made me take swimming lessons every day for the rest of the spring and summer. Now I can swim every bit as good as he can - almost anyway. Slim's a real good swimmer.

When I let Laurel DeWitt convince me that her husband, whom I used to work for, was beating her and she wanted to escape by going to Tumavaca, it was old Hard Rock that stood up to the bounty hunters DeWitt had sent to bring her back home. When the one who killed his rivals shot me Slim was there to take care of me and went with me to get the fella. The bounty hunter was planning on taking off with the almost thirty-thousand dollars Laurel had stolen from her husband. Me and Slim went after him and wound up killing him. I wasn't gonna go back to Laramie after that - I was pretty embarrassed about my actions - but my pard chased me down and talked me into going home.

It was Slim who stood up for my friend, John MacLean, when he was accused of killing a sheriff and a doctor before he showed up at the ranch looking to swap his lame horse for one of ours.

While I was out hunting down the real killer, a fella Mac and I knew all too well, it was my pard who tried to defend him during his so-called trial. Got hurt tryin' to save Mac from the hanging they were intent on having found him guilty. My pard's not just stubborn though, he's always willing to forgive. See when I got back with the killer, I found Mac, dead. He was hanging from a tree in the yard. I was so upset that I went storming into the house to have it out with Slim. Boy did I unload on him. I accused him of helping tie the knot or sleeping while Mac was being lynched. Then I stormed into town to confront the posse. Slim followed me into town even though he was hurt.

Then I slugged him a few nights later when he tried to strop me from going after Judge Hedrick and his son who had led the posse. I was really mad 'cause the posse had gotten off without even a year in prison for what they did.

When I got there the judge was already dead. According to the note he left his son he couldn't live with the knowledge that he'd made a grave mistake in convicting Mac and even worse allowing him to be hanged. It was while Slim was reading the note that James Hedrick started sneakin' down the stairs. We had to kill him in self defense. As we left the judge's house I started to leave Laramie for good. But Slim wouldn't let me. Said he'd been decked before and that was no reason for me to leave. I don't know how he does it but my pard has never given up on me. He's made me go - or talked me into going - home more times than I can remember now.

Awhile back there was that trouble with John McCambridge and the ex-cons he was trying to help. Slim had leased him some land and that didn't make my partner very popular with a lot of people - not that he cares if he thinks he's right.

Half the town was sure they were behind all the trouble in town and that they had killed our neighbor and burned his place. Not old Hard Rock. He was sure McCambridge's men were innocent. He heard some fellas talkin' in the saloon. They were gonna go out and clean out that viper's nest. Slim heard them and got out to the road to that land before them. He faced them down and sent them packing.

When I rode in with the stage that was carrying the money from the cattle drive Slim tried to warn me about there being trouble. He didn't say anything more than that I should keep my eyes open. I rode off and the bunch of us - the driver, shotgun and two guards besides me - walked right into an ambush. Everyone but me was killed.

It was my partner who came looking for me, my friend who tried to tend my wound as best he could and my brother who left me a canteen of water and went after Doc Hansen - hating that he had to leave me there, hurt, and unable to fend for myself. You never saw anyone so upset without saying a word.

It was my stubborn, hard rock partner, that faced down the men he suspected of the killings and proved it to the whole town including their boss who was a fellow rancher totally unsuspecting of his men. They tripped themselves up when they tried to count me among the dead just because I wasn't at the scene of the wreck.

The time that Jack Slade showed up at the ranch and told Slim he had to get rid of me or lose his contract with the stage line my pard stood his ground and told the company man that, and nobody else, hired men to work for him and only he fired them. Slade didn't like that too much. I was pretty upset - wasn't even gonna eat lunch - but Hard Rock came into the bedroom and talked to me and cheered me up.

That time that Vernon Kale committed murder and fled into the desert, my stubborn partner made me give him most of my water and went into the desert after him. Told me not to come after him even if he wasn't back in three days.

There was some trouble with a bunch of ranchers and sodbusters about a year ago. As usual it was my pard who stood up for what he calls "the underdog", He faced off again the ranchers that wanted to run them sodbusters off their places. He worked out a trade with Roy Allen who was sort of their leader. His help around the ranch for a while and some butter and cheese from our cow we left with him. Allen and his wife had a baby who needed the milk our cow was giving.

When Celie Rawlins turned out to be as bad as her late husband I tangled with his friend, and - as it turned out - her lover - Sam Willard. The two of them were planning something and didn't want me spoiling things. When I went to return to my seat in another car I was jumped, knocked out and thrown off the train.

When I finally managed to get home after that, on a horse I rented from a little farm I stumbled across, it was my pard who cleaned me up and patched me up. I was able to out stubborn him that time. I refused to go to bed after having my head beat in and riding all the way back to the ranch. Yeah, I wasn't feelin' so good but that wasn't gonna stop me. We went out and stopped the raid. None of the sodbusters were hurt but Celie Rawlins, Sam Willard and Gil Craig all wound up dead. So did some of their men. Me? I made it home and then blacked out when we dismounted by the barn.

I lost the battle on goin' to bed though. Slim didn't listen to my protests and me me rest for almost a week before he let me get near a horse - any horse.

The trouble with Clay Jackson almost cost me my partner in more ways than one.

Slim was pretty disgusted when everybody but the banker denied that Jackson could have been the one that robbed the stage and the banker. Even the driver said he couldn't identify the man. Old Hard Rock fired him on the spot as soon as the trial was over. Clay Jackson just had a way of charming folks into believing he was for the poor folk.

Slim said folks looked at him as a Robin Hood type of fella - stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. I even tried to talk Clay into leaving town just to keep my partner from confronting him after Clay shot and killed that young deputy. But together we tracked him down - me with a badge pinned on my vest - and kept him from killing the older couple he had originally helped by giving them the money for their mortgage payment.

I was so blinded by what my pard calls "hero worship" that I didn't realize that Clay Jackson wasn't above killing if he was broke and in need of money. The confrontation, in the old folks' barn, got me a bullet hole in my vest and Slim a graze on his right temple. Scared me half to death Old Hard Rock sure lived up to his nickname though. When, a few nights later, he saw me all dressed up fort the dance in town it didn't take him long to forget how weak and dizzy he was. Before running into the bedroom to change his clothes he promised to do the dishes when we got back.

The time Overland's rival tried to get him to sign with them Slim held out even after we got beat up and old Smudge nearly got killed by their hired men. His old girlfriend had gone into partnership with the man who owned it. She was holding a grudge against Slim over her father's losing the stage line. She wasn't aware of how far he would go to force people to sign until she heard about the lady that got stabbed and saw for herself how Smudge had been treated. She wouldn't have been there if my pard hadn't lost his temper and gone after her when he went into town for the doctor for Smudge. She came to her senses though - except that she left town with Deputy Lon when she could have had one of us.

It's that stubborn streak of his that saved his life when Greevy shot him and left him for dead. It kept him alive the time he got shot by the sheriff of Rimrock. The man was addicted to pain killers since the war and had killed the peddler that supplied him with it. It was that same stubborn streak that kept him searching for evidence that would clear his pa's name in the army payroll robbery.

When our friend, Joe Cloud, was murdered by Carl Vail it was Slim who stood up against everyone who thought he should let it go. That somehow it was justified because Joe was an Indian and had been caught with the hide of a butcher steer belonging to Vail and one of the Sherman ranch's horses. Because Joe was an Indian, in Vail's opinion he was automatically guilty. I was with my pal all the way on that one. Joe was a good friend. Saved me from a stomping the time we were in the army together and I got thrown. Joe picked me up before I finished bouncing and got me out of there.

My pard defied all those people and testified against Vail. He took a beating from one time friend, Luke Vail - Carl's oldest son - shortly after our barn burned. He wouldn't fight back, as much as he wanted to, because Luke's companions were holding guns on me and old Ben who was working at the relay station at the time. He telegraphed General Roberts who came out just as the hearing was ending. Thanks to his "talk" with the presiding judge Vail was held over for trial under a different judge. That judge, Judge Chase, found Carl Vail guilty of murder and sentenced him to hang.

When we were fleeing the mob that would have freed Vail, he got away from us while we were riding hard. to get away from them. The Cheyenne caught up with him though and saved us. A few minutes later, when the gun battle was over, we found Vail. The Cheyenne had killed him the same way he'd killed Joe. He was right - he didn't hang.

When Joe Morgan was being chased by Mort Corey's posse, Slim was riding with them. My pard's stubborn streak got him into trouble with Mort and hurt besides. Mort didn't want him climbing that rock face to try and get at Morgan. Slim did it anyway. Morgan fired a couple of shots which caused Slim to lose his footing and fall to the road below. He busted his collarbone. Like the stubborn fool he can be, he wanted to keep goin'. Mort put a stop to that idea pronto. He and the others on the posse took old Hard Rock to the doc and then home to Daisy's care. That's a battle he was destined to lose - especially since Mort was there to back her up.

His stubborn streak got him on his feet and to Mort's office after Bill Blayne and his friends beat him so bad they busted a couple of his ribs and gave him a concussion. Old Mort was fit to be tied when Hard Rock told him not to go after Blayne. He said he couldn't prove anything and he was more worried about me and my temper.

Bill Blayne had been baiting me - trying to get me into a gunfight - from the day he killed my friend, Sandy Forrester, in what was declared a fair fight. I'd already been in a brawl with Bill Blayne which didn't make Mort real happy. He's always trying to settle me down.

Slim told Mort I was a teakettle waiting to blow its top. He tried to keep me out of town and out of the trouble waiting for me, but it was too late. By the time Mort got Slim to Doc Collyer's office, and was on the way to the ranch. one of Blayne's friends had delivered Slim's gun belt by throwing it through the window of the front door..

I was beyond mad at that point. When I got to Laramie, and tracked my partner down in his hotel room where he was sleeping, I was ready to kill if I had to. I was convinced that Slim was lying to me when he told me he needed me to go back to the ranch because Daisy and Mike might be in danger from the men who robbed the Willow Springs Relay Station and killed a man in the process. It was when he tried to get out of bed and go back to the ranch because I refused, that I realized he was telling me the truth. He wasn't in any shape to make that trip. It would be a few days before Doc Collyer would let him go home,

I thought I'd lost him for sure the time we had the Dixson boys working for us. Len and Pete aren't very bright and they're not exactly good workers. They couldn't even rob the stage. Old Mose and his shotgun rider took them into custody when they tried and delivered them, trussed up like Thanksgiving turkeys, to Slim at the ranch urging him to press charges. Not my partner. No sir. He was convinced he could talk some sense into them.

They turned out all right in the end. Morgan Bennet, who had ridden with the Reno gang, showed up at the ranch, pretending to be some sort of professor looking for gold in an area that Slim's pa had known quite well. What he was really after was the loot they had buried before he was caught and sent to prison.

When Slim finally figured out, for sure, that Morgan wasn't no professor, Morgan forced him to dig up the money his gang had buried. He'd given my partner back his weapons but they were loaded with harmless half loads or blanks. Slim figured he'd done the same to the cartridges in his gun belt as well. Morgan made Slim tie the money onto his saddle and then walked him back to the edge of the cliff intending to shoot him in the back. Slim tried to jump him but Morgan knocked him out and rolled him over the edge in hopes of killing him without wasting a bullet.

It was a good thing for Slim that he was completely out of it 'cause he wound up with a broken left arm, a lot of scratches and bruises and torn clothes. I found him a while later, still unconscious, when I trailed the two of them to where they'd dug up the stolen money. It took me a few minutes to arrange things so I could climb down to him. When I got to his side he came around and I raised him up enough to be able to support him while he took a drink from my canteen.

I wanted to splint his arm, put it in a sling and then get my horse to the bottom of the cliff to get him out but old Hard Rock wasn't having anything to do with that idea. His temper flaring, he told me to get back up top and throw him a rope he could put around himself so I could pull him back up. He was bound and determined to go after Morgan and nothing was going to stop him.

By the time we figured out which way Morgan had gone he'd wounded Len and Pete. I got the killing shot though. Couldn't believe my ears a while later when the Dixon boys said they wanted to be like us from now on. Up to that time we'd have thought they were hopeless and Mort figured they'd be on some of those wanted poster he'd dropped off. It was one of those posters that tipped me off to who the professor really was.

That stubborn streak has saved my life. It's saved his life. Probably saved Andy and Jonesy a few times as well. It helped him raise Andy from the time the boy was six or seven and their widowed mother died. It's nursed him through illnesses and injuries and done the same for me.

It kept him going when we went through one housekeeper after another before Daisy came to live with us and the judge finally gave us full legal custody of Mike.

Yeah, old Hard Rock's stubborn all right but I wouldn't have him any other way.


End file.
